Chapter XXIV “De Mortuis.”
“O God, that it were possible, after long years of pain,
To find the arms of my true love around me once again!”
“The walls where hung the warriors’ shining casques
Are green with moss and mould;
The blind worm coils where queens have slept, nor asks
For shelter from the cold.”
Three years had passed since John de Standen pulled down the stronghold of the De Beauchamps. William de Beauchamp, making the best of the necessity which was forced upon him, set to work to erect himself a house between the inner and outer bailey. It still went by the name of the castle. Unfortunately no plan or description of this building has been handed down to us. It only existed for about twice as long as its predecessor, the Norman keep of Pain de Beauchamp. Camden, writing in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, describes it as a stately ruin overhanging the Ouse; and an old map of about the same time shows that these ruins occupied a pleasant position a little back from the river, and looking south. As it was strictly an unfortified mansion, we may opine that it was much such a building as that which we have described at Bletsoe, consisting of a large, long hall, with private apartments at one end one story high, but larger and built of stone.
In one of these apartments, one afternoon in the summer of 1227, sat Aliva de Pateshulle, now Aliva de Beauchamp, with her baby-boy upon her knee. She was looking out of the round, arched window, which was somewhat larger than the shuttered apertures in the old keep. The house was intended for a comfortable dwelling, and not for a place of defence. The walls were not half the thickness of those which had enclosed her prison of three years before, though built of identically the same stones. The rooms, too, were lighter, larger, and more habitable. The science of domestic architecture was beginning.
Aliva herself was also a more fully developed specimen of beautiful young womanhood. The angularity of her tall figure had disappeared, and there was more ripeness and fulness about her cheeks and mouth. But her large gray eyes remained unchanged. Her beautiful fair hair, perhaps a shade darker than it had been when it hung down over her shoulders that morning in the garden at Bletsoe, was partly covered with the ugly wimple, the matronly head-dress of the period, which had replaced the maidenly fillet.
Aliva was gazing from the window, which commanded a view of the river, and was apparently watching for the approach of some one from the entrance to the west. Presently she waved her hand in that direction, and holding up the boy to the window, bade him look down at his father.
Ralph entered the house, crossed the large hall, and made his way to his wife’s apartment. He also had somewhat altered in three years. His massive frame had filled out, and with his large limbs more covered with flesh and muscle, he looked even more like a young giant than he had done that eve of the Assumption when he had fought his way into the keep.
He strode into the room, his face lighting up with a smile as his little son clambered down from his mother’s knee and toddled to meet him. He lifted the boy up and kissed him. Then he kissed his wife; and she, returning his embrace, began forthwith with feminine curiosity,—
“Well, sweetheart mine, what news?”
Ralph was in his riding-dress. He had come in from a journey, and this was why Aliva was watching for him so anxiously from the window. The country had, indeed, much quieted down since the siege of Bedford Castle and the ejection of the De Breauté marauders. During the period which elapsed between the revolt against King John and the wars of the barons, which troubled the latter end of his successor’s reign, there intervened a period of peace. Nevertheless, Aliva was always glad to see her husband safe home again.
“And so, Ralph mine, if thou hast news, prithee tell it me. Here naught has passed out of the common. The boy and I have played together, and awaited the home-coming of father.”
“My business for which I set forth is ended,” began Ralph; “but, marry, ’twas dull work! ’Tis ill to deal with scriveners and such like folk! But as I rode through St. Alban’s I bethought me of turning in to the abbey gate, and making my obeisance to the reverend father abbot. Thou knowest that a De Beauchamp is ever welcome in a house of Holy Church.”
“Ah, St. Alban’s!” cried Aliva; “and, prithee, didst give my message relating to the incised stone to the memory of my protector, who was slain at the siege, the bold young lay-brother of Bletsoe?”
“Ay, verily I did,” replied Ralph. “And the father abbot was well pleased to learn that one of their house, who fell in fighting for Holy Church (for thus, thou knowest, these priests always speak of the siege), should sleep in our fair church of St. Paul at Bedford. He hath given me an inscription to have writ on the slab. He saith it should be cut in letters as is cut the inscription to Muriel Colt on the north of the high altar. But hearken, wife,” he added, sitting down beside her; “I have other news for thee.”
“And good news, prithee?”
“Heaven forfend that I should speak hastily or harshly of a dead enemy!” continued Ralph gravely. “Sir Fulke is no more. The reverend father hath instructed me that I may say, an if I will, ‘Rest his soul in peace.’ For it seemeth he died free from the censure of Holy Church.”
Aliva received the news in silence. Her thoughts flew back to those few terrible weeks when she was an unwilling guest in Fulke’s castle. Then she replied,—
“I, too, would say, ‘God rest his soul.’ As thou knowest, I scarce saw him here, for he fled to Wales when he heard that the council had determined to attack the castle. But his brother—”
She paused, for even now she could not make the least allusion to William de Breauté without a shudder.
“Tell me all thou hast heard,” she added.
“I will give the tale in few words,” Ralph answered. “Thou mindest how, after he had submitted himself to our lord the king in Bedford here, he was given, as an enemy of Holy Church, into the safe-keeping of my Lord Eustace, the Bishop of London.”
“Ay,” put in Aliva. “Some time since, when I went to Elstow to visit Lady Margaret, the reverend mother told me how she had restored the sword into the hands of the figure of St. Paul in the abbey church, as soon as it was told her that the holy apostle had the destroyer of St. Paul’s Church safe in the keeping of the Bishop of St. Paul’s in London.”
“But see here,” Ralph went on. “The good father has had writ out for me a copy of the entry of Sir Fulke’s history, as recorded by the scribe of the monastery to be laid in the scriptorium. I will e’en read it to thee, if I have not forgot the Latin the old chaplain taught me when I was a boy.”
And Ralph read out the following history, which is still preserved to us in the chronicles of St. Alban’s:—
“Fulke, after that he was pardoned at London, and because he was marked with the cross, was allowed to depart for Rome. After crossing the sea he applied for a passport at Fiscamp, and was detained by the bailiffs of France. At last, the following Easter, after that he had been released from prison, he went to Rome, and sent very piteous letters to the king, asking that his wife and his lands might be restored to him.”
“Alack! The poor Lady Margaret!” put in Aliva, with a sigh.
“Whereupon the king, with his barons,” read on Ralph, “sent word to our lord the Pope of the treachery of Fulke; and the latter, having had his refusal, set off for Troyes; and after staying there a year, was sent out of France, because he would not pay homage to the king. He went to Rome, and again, with much entreaty, begged that his wife and his patrimony might be restored to him; and on his return from that city, burdened with debt, he died at St. Cyriac.”
“His wife would ne’er have returned to him!” ejaculated Aliva indignantly.
“Neither had he any patrimony here, either in the castle or in the manors,” added Ralph. “Were they not wrested from my uncle and from others, and given to him as a reward for his evil services to our late king John? And hark ye, my Aliva, the father abbot showed me also, written by his learned scribe, the whole account of the siege of the castle; and he saith that, in after ages, the history of Bedford will be known ever as it is known now. Perchance our names are mentioned, but I read not that portion of the chronicle.”
His wife scarcely heeded. She was thinking of the present, and not of the future. Woman-like, her mind was running on match-making.
“Does the Lady Margaret know of Sir Fulke’s death?” she asked.
“I trow not,” answered Ralph. “The news hath but even now reached England, and hath but just been set down by the abbey scribe at the end of his history of the siege. But doubtless news will be sent to Earl William de Warenne, who, as thou knowest, has charge of the lands and possessions which were hers ere she married, and which have been restored to her.”
“Then she is free!” mused Aliva.
“Ay, free, poor lady. The priests decided, when she sought to be released, that there had been no impediment of canon law to her marriage, and that it could not, even if it had been in a manner forced, and the bride unwilling, be dissolved by the authority of the Church. Death hath loosed her bonds.”
There was a stirring of the heavy curtain which hung in the doorway of the apartment. But so engrossed were the two speakers that no one noticed it but the child, who, after looking towards it, began to toddle uncertainly in that direction.
“She is free,” repeated Aliva thoughtfully. “Her husband is dead, and she hath not yet bound herself by the vows of a religious life, even did she wish it, which, often as I have talked with her these three years past since she hath sought shelter at Elstow, I doubt much.”
“True, wife; if any one should know the Lady Margaret’s mind, it should be thou, who art to her as a daughter. But beshrew me if I wot what thou art driving at, sweetheart.”
Aliva sprang up, and throwing her arms round her husband’s neck, exclaimed, with an arch smile,—
“How oft dunder-headed men are where love is concerned! Ralph, we shall see the Lady Margaret the châtelaine of Bedford again!”
And then a most extraordinary thing occurred. Behind, in the doorway, they heard a joyful laugh.
There stood their uncle, Sir William, who never within the memory of either of them had been known even to smile.
He advanced hurriedly into the room, and catching up his great-nephew in his arms, kissed his little flaxen head, and laughed again.
The End